Michael Brown, astronomer, says science is not about debate, people are too stupid to judge

Michael Brown, recipient of taxpayer funds for astronomy, tells us that science is not about debate because people are not smart enough to judge the winner. He doesn’t list any evidence to support his faith in climate models (he’s just part of the herd following the consensus pack). Nor does he have any serious scientific criticism of the NIPCC climate report. But he uses plenty of names, baseless allusion, and innuendo. In the article ”Adversaries, zombies and NIPCC climate pseudoscience” in The Conversation he resorts to a group smear (with the help of the taxpayer funded site) in the hope that people won’t listen to those who disagree with him. Apparently he can’t win a fair and open debate, so he’s doing what he can to stop one.

If science now has “Gods” who are above question, it’s not science, it’s a religion. A scientist who says “I’m right because I’m a scientist” is neither right nor much of a scientist. Brown is acting like a self-appointed High-Priest of the Climate Doctrine.

The NIPCC report is more balanced, more comprehensive, and more accurate than the politically-guided tome from the IPCC . It contains hundreds of peer reviewed references put together by independent scientists. In his reply to it, Michael Brown tells us all we need to know about the intellectual state of Australian science, and the value of The Conversation.

This is the face of the Church of Global Warming. (Yes, the “academic” site actually used this photo below — is there any better evidence that it’s not about science, but about propaganda?).

“Adversaries, zombies and NIPCC climate pseudoscience”

Dead science lives on, thanks to the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate ChangeMichael Brown and The Conversation. |Photo: Scott Beale

How low can Brown go?

How about “zombies”, “aliens”, and “pseudoscience”? As an unskeptical scientist (and we all know what that means), it appears Brown hopes to win through name-calling and “seeding doubt” about the motivations of people he disagrees with. Skeptical scientists are “skeptics” (always in quotes to imply they’re fakes) who are “bankrolled” (he’s blind to the evidence about the financial truth too).

For evidence Brown cites a consensus study that mixes up 0.3% with 97%. He likes the IPCC political-consensus approach. This is post-modern science (or post-science, science) forget radiosondes, just poll government appointees.

All the other evidence Brown lists is superficial and irrelevant. He claims: “there is remarkably good agreement between models of climate change and the temperature data.” Then offers as evidence the utterly banal and correct predictions of the “last 50 years” while ignoring the devastating failure in the predictions of the last 20 years that matter.

Modern science is broken — Astronomy in Australia is a small community and illogical, unscientific people have already been promoted to influential positions. I could ask where the decent astronomers are, and why aren’t they protesting, but because Brown’s activism is so strong, so unscientific, and unequivocal, I expect those who disagree with him would choose to stay silent. They wouldn’t know whether their next grant will be reviewed by him, but they know that if it is, and they are a vocal skeptic, it won’t help them. After a rant like this, why would anyone expect equal treatment?

This Heisenberg-like state of uncertainty (will or will he not be a reviewer for my application/proposal/paper? and will or will he not be biased if he thinks I am a zombie/denier/anti-science?) is enough to bring people in line. Welcome to the stifling blanket of self censorship.

Ode to the stupid

According to Brown, those who question the mantra of the IPCC are not just speaking their mind, they are using a pseudoscience “ploy” to fool the people (who are too dumb to realize). These evil mercenary skeptics want you to think we need to debate complex, costly plans that are dependent on our knowledge of the weather. (Imagine that!) Luckily for us, Brown is here to correct the dumb engineers, doctors, and lawyers who are unconvinced a solar panel in Melbourne will help stop a flood in Bangladesh.

The call for adversarial debate is a variant of the debate ploy, a common pseudoscience tactic. At first glance having two teams present competing positions seems entirely reasonable, but this approach only works if the intended audience can effectively assess the arguments presented.

Who is the pseudoscientist using a ploy to fool the public? The geologist who tells us that this warming is not unusual, or the man who has no evidence, and a profoundly unscientific and patronizing belief that only the anointed can speak their mind?

How’s this for reasoning: According to Brown, adversarial debate failed once with Einstein’s theory of relativity (the audience were not able to get the right answer in 1920 on one of the most difficult and ground breaking scientific advances in centuries). Cue the High-Priest, therefore and verily says he, adversarial debate is always a waste of time and science can only advance if the populace lets politicians annoint Gods in each subject (and everyone bows to them).

No dissent will be tolerated, or we will call you a “zombie”!

Brown manages a few paragraphs of sciencey looking talk, but the papers he supposedly debunks are irrelevant to all the main NIPCC claims. The papers he cites as supporting him don’t have any evidence that the IPCC assumptions were correct.

239 comments to Michael Brown, astronomer, says science is not about debate, people are too stupid to judge

People are not too stupid, people are uninformed, and it is the likes of Brown who work unstintingly to ensure that that state of affairs continues. The BBC have just this morning stated that they could not find a working scientist to support the sceptic case. I’m going up to London today to hear Fred Singer talk about NIPCC Report 2013. Didn’t try very hard, did they? The truth of it is that the IPCC process has been revealed to be a political process controlled by extremist Greens who are now panicking because the lack of scientific support for their case has been publicly revealed. “The Neglected Sun,” puts together the sceptic case both as an academic paper and as a readily-accessible guide for the lay-person. The expected cooling in northern Europe that the warmists are hyper-ventilating over is easily explained by reference to natural variation both solar and terrestrial. CO2 has a part to play, but only as another forcing.

The wheels are definitely off the CO2 scam-wagon. As the news spreads and the public realise just how they have been misled, a lot of rent-seekers are going to feel real heat.

“SPM in a nutshell: Since we started in 1990 we were right about the Arctic, wrong about the Antarctic, wrong about the tropical troposphere, wrong about the surface, wrong about hurricanes, wrong about the Himalayas, wrong about sensitivity, clueless on clouds and useless on regional trends. And on that basis we’re 95% confident we’re right.”

To me, the SPM in a nutshell comes from note 16 on page 11. The consensus is that no consensus on equilibrium climate sensitivity can be given.

16
No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on
values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.
IPCC WGI AR5 SPM-11 27 September 2013

Obviously Roy W Spencer has everyone mad at him doing all the true global temperature measurement with the MSU. And all the data recorded is in the public domain. Actual measurements in the public. Who woulda thunk it???

‘In the early 1990s…Singer set up the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy with the help of the Alexis﻿ de Tocqueville Institution and with funding support from the Unification Church (also known as “Moonies,” …Later Singer’s organisation…with funding from the coal and oil industries and some support from PR firm APCO & Associates…A former mouthpiece for the tobacco industry’

(I decided to make a rare moderator reply because you attack him for activities not related to his talk about the NIPCC report.But I will post this part below to show you what a special man he is and the work he did for science and Education that spans 60+ years) CTS

After his masters, Singer joined the Armed Forces, working for the United States Navy on mine warfare and countermeasures from 1944 until 1946. While with the Naval Ordnance Laboratory he developed an arithmetic element for an electronic digital calculator that he called an “electronic brain.” He was discharged in 1946 and joined the Upper Atmosphere Rocket Program at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Silver Spring, Maryland, working there until 1950. He focused on ozone, cosmic rays, and the ionosphere, all measured using balloons and rockets launched from White Sands, New Mexico, or from ships out at sea. Rachel White Scheuering writes that for one mission to launch a rocket, he sailed with a naval operation to the Arctic, and also conducted rocket launching from ships at the equator.

1951: Design of early satellites

Singer was one of the first scientists to urge the launching of earth satellites for scientific observation during the 1950s.[20] In 1951 or 1952 he proposed the MOUSE (“Minimal Orbital Unmanned Satellite, Earth”), a 100 pounds (45 kg) satellite that would contain Geiger counters for measuring cosmic rays, photo cells for scanning the Earth, telemetry electronics for sending data back to Earth, a magnetic data storage device, and rudimentary solar energy cells. Although MOUSE never flew, the Baltimore News Post reported in 1957 that had Singer’s arguments about the need for satellites been heeded, the U.S. could have beaten Russia by launching the first earth satellite.[19] He also proposed (along with R. C. Wentworth) that satellite measurement of ultraviolet backscatter could be used as a method to measure atmospheric ozone profiles.[21] This technique was later used on early weather satellites.

1953: University of Maryland

Singer moved back to the United States in 1953, where he took up an associate professorship in physics at the University of Maryland, and at the same time served as the director of the Center for Atmospheric and Space Physics. Scheuering writes that his work involved conducting experiments on rockets and satellites, remote sensing, radiation belts, the magnetosphere, and meteorites. He developed a new method of launching rockets into space: firing them from a high-flying plane, both with and without a pilot. The Navy adopted the idea and Singer supervised the project. He received a White House Special Commendation from President Eisenhower in 1954 for his work.

1962: National Weather Center and University of Miami

In 1962, on leave from the university, Singer was named as the first director of meteorological satellite services for the National Weather Satellite Center, now part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and directed a program for using satellites to forecast the weather.

1967: Department of Interior and EPA

In 1967 he accepted the position of deputy assistant secretary with the U.S. Department of the Interior, where he was in charge of water quality and research. When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was created on 1970, he became its deputy assistant administrator of policy.

1971–1994 University of Virginia

Singer accepted a professorship in Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia in 1971, a position he held until 1994, where he taught classes on environmental issues such as ozone depletion, acid rain, climate change, population growth, and public policy issues related to oil and energy. In 1987 he took up a two-year post as chief scientist at the Department of Transportation, and in 1989 joined the Institute of Space Science and Technology in Gainesville, Florida where he contributed to a paper on the results from the Interplanetary Dust Experiment using data from the Long Duration Exposure Facility satellite

You talk of coal and oil industries and PR firm APCO & Associates former mouthpiece for the tobacco industry. Will you equally attack the following?

Climate Research Unit (CRU)
“From the late 1970s through to the collapse of oil prices in the late 1980s, CRU received a series of contracts from BP to provide data and advice….we would like to acknowledge the support of the following funders….British Petroleum,…Shell,…Sultanate of Oman…”
Source: cru.uea.ac.uk/about-cru/history

—–

“Exxon-Led Group Is Giving A Climate Grant to Stanford”
Four big international companies, including the oil giant Exxon Mobil, said yesterday that they would give Stanford University $225 million over 10 years….In 2000, Ford and Exxon Mobil’s global rival, BP, gave $20 million to Princeton to start a similar climate and energy research program…”
Source: New York Times – 21 November 2002

—–

Sierra Club
“TIME has learned that between 2007 and 2010 the Sierra Club accepted over $25 million in donations from the gas industry, mostly from Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy—one of the biggest gas drilling companies in the U.S. and a firm heavily involved in fracking…”
Source: Time – 2 February 2012

—–

Nature Conservancy
“…The Conservancy also has given BP a seat on its International Leadership Council and has accepted nearly $10 million in cash and land contributions from BP and affiliated corporations over the years. “Oh, wow,” De Leon said when told of the depth of the relationship between the nonprofit group she loves and the company she hates. “That’s kind of disturbing.”……Conservation International has accepted $2 million in donations from BP over the years…”
Source: Washington Post – 25 May 2010

—–

Delhi Sustainable Development Summit
In 2003 and 2004 Rajendra Pachauri’s annual Delhi Sustainable Development Summit was sponsored, among others, by the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. and the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. In 2005 Shell gave money and in 2006 and 2007 BP gave money. The Rockefeller Foundation gave donations in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012.
Source: dsds.teriin.org [See their About Us - Archives]

Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project
“Financial Support – Berkeley Earth is now an independent non profit. Berkeley Earth received a total of $623,087 in financial support for the first phase of work,…..First Phase
…….Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research (created by Bill Gates) ($100,000) Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation ($150,000)……”
Source: berkeleyearth.org/donors

Al Gore, the climate change campaigner, has been quoted in 1996 by the New York Times saying:

“Throughout most of my life, I’ve raised tobacco,”……..”I want you to know that with my own hands, all of my life, I put it in the plant beds and transferred it. I’ve hoed it. I’ve chopped it. I’ve shredded it, spiked it, put it in the barn and stripped it and sold it.”

Earlier in the same article the New York Times said:

“Six years after Vice President Al Gore’s older sister died of lung cancer in 1984, he was still accepting campaign contributions from tobacco interests. Four years after she died, while campaigning for President in North Carolina, he boasted of his experiences in the tobacco fields and curing barns of his native Tennessee….”

—
In 2007 the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a report called “ExxonMobil’s Tobacco-like Disinformation Campaign on Global Warming Science”.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has in the past received funding from the Grantham Foundation, which is bankrolled by hedge-fund manager Jeremy Grantham. At the time of the funding the foundation had holdings in tobacco giant Philip Morris. In August of 2011 his fund owned millions of shares in fossil fuel companies such as Exxon Mobil.
—
One of the founders of the wildlife and climate campaigning WWF is Dr. Anton Rupert. The now deceased Dr. Rupert made his fortune from the cigarette manufacturing company called Voorbrand, re-named Rembrandt, now consolidated into Rothmans.
Ref: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1508360/Anton-Rupert.html

The BBC Pension fund, as at 31 March 2012, had investments in the following tobacco companies:
British American Tobacco
Imperial Tobacco
Reynolds American
Altria Group
Philip Morris International
————————————————-

You see my friend two can play this dirty game and I can play it better than you – years of dealing with Warmists.

This is merely another way of the old story that apparently Fred singer is funded by “Climate change deniers” which there no proof to back this up,therefore anything he does is irrelevant.The entire concept of “deniers” is stupid as no-one has said this,or said that they deny that climate changes. Therefore you are attributing things that have never been said in the first place. Just what gives you the right to decide that someone is a “climate change denier” when they question the science? That is there right to do so,and labeling them a “denier” is a blatant attempt to discredit their reputation and anything they have said.

Mod: I hope my use of the term “denier” is acceptable,as I’m getting thoroughly annoyed by this,and the blatant misuse of the term,in ways it was never meant to be used.

Churchill was a thinker of considerable depth and a man well worth studying.

That’s a trick I use. I haven’t a “tea lady” but when I want to be sure I understand how my code is going to work I sit down and write comments right into the file. Then I compare the actual behavior of the program against the comments. Very revealing and sometimes embarrassing too. But always worthwhile.

Writing the code and then writing the comments is not known as “best practice” it is merely a “customary practice”.

At the very least, write the comments BEFORE you write the code. Then write the code so it matches your comments. This practice greatly enhances the possibility of your code doing what you say it does.

It is even better to include in your comments a a statement or contract that specifies the inputs, the outputs, and the special behavior of the code block. This allows others to use the code block without understanding the internal details.

The really positive thing about this practice is that it supports a visual code test, a white box test, and black box test of your code by yourself and others. The goal being to produce reliable code.

Many programmers might object that this practice is obsessive and excessive. Considering that most of my code I have written was for life critical applications, it is not excessively obsessive. An overlooked mistake (aka bug) can and often does have serious consequences.

Mostly that’s the way I do it. I also try to give the next guy an even break with comments that actually can be used to figure out what my intent was. Every function gets a description of what it does and why it does it.

“The NIPCC report is more balanced, more comprehensive, and more accurate that the politically-guided tome from the IPCC. It contains hundreds of peer reviewed references put together by independent scientists.”

What The HS doesn’t point out is the solar forcing from 2000 to 2050 in the NASA GISS graph. They’ve assumed it will stay constant in CMIP5/AR5 simulations when already in 2013, SC24 solar output has dropped by about 0.3 – 0.5 W.m2 compared to the comparative starts of SCs 22 and 23.

But hey, we’re to blame for the temperature rise from 1950 the the El Nino year 2010. Of course after 2010, the 2nd decade of the 21st Century is tracking on average cooler than the 1st:

‘Honeycutt-Nuccitelli Climate Bet Progress Report…So Far New Decade Is Cooler Than The Last…Ready To Concede?’

Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths. Those are found in other circumstances…

Michael Brown just joined the ever lenghening line-up of the desperate. The net has immortalised this vaudeville performance. I think he will come to regret it for it may haunt his career in years to come.

Absolute proof that BRAIN DEATH is not fatal.The International Purveyors of Climate Crime/Crap have “confirmed” that we are on track for a 2 degree temp rise,Well to quote Forrest Gump “stupid is as stupid does”<:o)

I listened to that on tonight’s ABC News, and it was the expected blah blah blah, and at the end in a sort of fait accompli, the announcer said, and let me quote ….. “….. and that might actually prove ….. undeniable!”

The more flimsy the evidence the more shrill is the appeal to faith and the more ferocious their castigation of Unbelievers.

That’s the short answer.
The long answer is… heh… well that’s what Jo’s been doing here for the last 5 years.
You could start with her Evidence pages like this one.
The most plausible motive for all this pretence is redistributing wealth by taxation. When you’ve figured out how to extract several billion dollars per year from the main industrial nations, it’s a cash cow you won’t want to give up.

IPCC fever. Lets face it, the big Report only comes out once every five years. If they can’t scare a few people now, when can they?

They’ve been hurt by the scandals and the savage media reporting lately. They know they have to stop the slide, their well paid PR agencies will have been working hard to do that. We have a chance at the moment, but we must not let the pressure up.

These changes as a result of the ‘conclave’ this week totally dissonates my cognitives. Well, IPCC has thrown down the gauntlet – if the pause continues beyond 15 years (well it already has), they are toast.

I live in FNQ well into the tropics, 9 degrees yesterday morning after some 10 degree mornings prior to that. No mention of that on the ABC. Some inches of rain for Sept. Have spent most of my 83 years in western Qld don’t have a degree in anything except a ‘hard knocks’ one. Endured some of the ‘worst droughts in history’, ‘wettest’ years, ‘hottest’ years and ‘coldest’ years, climate is certainly changeable in Australia.
Congratulations on the number of hits on your site, I’ve contributed to it over time.
Geoff Cooney

Can anyone explain why the news reports on anything? There are two widely held theories: One–they report on what people want to hear and the most sensational news they can find. Two–they report what they and their news colleagues want to hear since their awards come from fellow broadcasters. Maybe they just put the stories up on a giant board and throw darts? The janitor picks? I’m just guessing here.

In the print media, the role of the reporter, is to write “stuff” to fill the spaces between adverts, or propaganda messages.

In the electronic media, it is the same, except that a lot of the time between adverts and propaganda messages is filled with entertainment, so there is less “space” to fill.

Newspapers do not make money from the cover price which barely equals the costs of print, and distribution, and vendor markup. In the electronic media, it is the same, except that they deliver the service “for free” because there are no distribution costs etc.

In both cases, all of their operating expenses – rent, power, salaries, and shareholder profits/contribution to party funds, come from advertising revenue or the state propaganda budget. It is the advertisers and propagandists who influences what the media produces, and how it is presented, based on what will attract the most message eye-ball time, and thus impact product sales/indoctrination.

The end recipient does not enter into this equation, at any time, except in their role as the ultimate target.

For the same reason the “Taiwanese” CHINA POST — a “local” English voice of the New World Order here in Taiwan! — printed this biased news today, as they forever preach human-caused CO2 “Global Warming” propaganda, and delete any comments on the contrary.

This whole week has been “Climate Week”, at least in the U.S., with non-stop propaganda (of which, I have no doubt, the Brown rant discussed here is a part). Everything you here pro-consensus is a childish lie.

The BBC was hijacked on ‘climate’ reporting by the’ environmental’ lobby for years. My best guess is that one should concentrate on the usual suspects i.e. Follow the Money…with special attention to item 6 http://homepage.ntlworld.com/sealed/gw/critics.htm
Do remember we are talking both energy politics and a fee payable to the UN – a tax on energy use or tax on air are both correct. The IPCC is a UN bureaucracy focused on ginning up alarming ‘science’ to bolster a scam of truly global proportions.

To re-post a short section of my comments from Jo’s “10 million views” thread.

6 / And now the latest shift in the attitudes and CAGW politics spells real trouble for the advocating and alarmist CAGW scientists.

This quote from a post by Roger Pielke Jr, who is definitely not a skeptic but plays his own fiddle. His blog is well worth a regular read.

A difficult question for the climate science community is, how is it that this broad community of researchers — full of bright and thoughtful people — allowed intolerant activists who make false claims to certainty to become the public face of the field?

Via the GWPF site, another European climate news and skeptic research group with an excellent reputation .

Global warming’s credibility problem is not the deniers’ and the skeptics’ fault. It’s the fault of activist scientists, Al Gore, and the IPCC. They’ve cried wolf too much. They’ve vastly overstated what the science “says,” and treated anybody who is the least bit doubtful as the enemy.

Now maybe I am the one seeing unicorns where none exist but I note the increasing absence of well known, formerly very high profile warmist advocating climate scientists in mentions in the popular media in very recent times.

A few such as Trenberth are still highly visible. Albeit Trenberth along with most other still visible but fading from the scene, warmist advocating climate scientists, has developed a definite inflection marked by a considerable amount of “hemming” and “hawing” about what is currently happening in the global climate compared with the supposed future of the climate as predicted by this same bunch of catastrophe advocating scientists and climate modelers.

A long time ago in these parts of Australia in the state of Victoria a small group of very powerful politicians were having problems between themselves sorting out who the hell was going to run the state.
So they appointed an innocent country newbie politician to hold the fort while they retired to the smoke filled back rooms to fight it out.

In farmer parlance, the old bulls had fought themselves to a standstill in front of the herd so they retired to the back paddock to sort it all out away from the sight of the herd.
They put a new young bull in charge of the herd who would be easily be disposed of when the old bulls had got themselves sorted.

Well that young bull was a hell of a lot smarter than those old bulls had counted on and he got that whole herd of steers, cows and heifers [ heifers = nubile young female cows ] all to himself for the next 17 years.

Henry Bolte still is the longest serving Premier of Victoria from 1955 to 1972.

The moral of this story is that the old bulls of climate warming science are quietly retiring to the back room until the dust settles and the third and fourth rate climate alarmist wannabe noticed bulls are emerging and covering themselves with bucket loads of ! _________I’ll leave that bit to your unfortunate imagination

In short what I believe I am seeing is the front line, high profile climate warmist catastrophe advocating climate scientists are very quietly backing out and adopting an increasingly low profile in the media and their public pronouncements as it all comes very unstuck.

In their place are the third and fourth rate climate catastrophe whack jobs that nobody has heard of, still spouting their incomprehensible nostrums in the belief that people are still listening to them.

The sheeple may have been bludgeoned into imbibing the message and whilst ‘accepting’ that it is the required line, know instinctively that they’re being ripped off, usually when they get their power bill or when their local council trumpet a new project engaging in predicted-climate-change-related-risk-minimisation that requires yet another substantial rate hike, and all ‘in your best interests’.

They have in other words been habituated to the meme, so they pay little attention.

Nonetheless, the listeners do remain. The politicians, the toxic Greens and all those who exploit the meme need to hear an incantation of the mantra. It is the essence of their faith, their raison d’etre.

What I have difficulty with is the sheer absence of counterpoint, the MSM silence in this regard (NZ in particular), and I wonder why. Is there not sensationalism in showing the scam for what it is, aside from demonstrating any residual ability to exercise the lost art of critical journalism?

I think that 25 years ago when editors were appointing their first Environment Correspondents they thought “who would know the most about this environmental stuff” and the obvious answer was members of WWF and Greenpeace. They did not realise the tsunami they were creating. It was the time of “Silent Spring” and “Love Canal” so a lot of big polluters did need pressure to behave.Crusading was fun and virtuous. So look where it got us.

No professional scientist taught correct radiative physics** can support the IPCC case.

Brown was taught the science therefore he is being unprofessional.

Anyone working in science who behaves unprofessionally must vacate their job.

**qdot = -Div Fv where qdot is the monochromatic rate of heat transfer per unit volume to matter and Fv is the monochromatic radiation flux density per unit volume. Integrate this over all wavelengths and you get the difference between two S-B equations. There can be no ‘back radiation’. Brown does this in astronomy therefore his IPCC support is political not scientific.

There can be no ‘back radiation’??? Except you just said you believe in radiation, which means you believe in “back radiation”, since “back radiation” is just a shorthand term for radiation which originates in the air as seen from the ground.
The air is above absolute zero temperature and it has radiative gases, so it must radiate. Yes it’s measured, by everyone, so it exists.

Sorry, but you are clearly one of the 97% of scientists and engineers who fail to understand radiative physics. An IR optical pyrometer measures the proportion of vibrational activated emission sites, a function of temperature. The pyrgeometer calculates the radiation field of a body with that temperature and outputs this in Power units, W/m^2, which assumes a collimated beam.

However. this is not a real energy flux but the potential energy that the emitter would transfer to a sink at absolute zero. The Kiehl – Trenberth energy budget makes this mistake and introduces an entirely artificial 333 W/m^2 ‘back radiation’, a perpetual motion machine of the 2nd kind with the lower atmosphere causing itself to expand.

To offset this they falsely claim Kirchhoff’s Law of Radiation applies at ToA resulting in the ‘Clear Sky Atmospheric Greenhouse Factor’ of 157.5 W/m^2, 6.85 times higher than the real atmospheric IR absorption of 23 W/m^2. This extra warming causes more evaporation in the models by pretending the ‘back radiation’ causes more evaporation.

During hind casting, they use double real low level optical depth to pretend to get the correct temperature. It’s a confidence trick and you are one of those who has fallen for it. Sorry, but these are the facts, not the glittering claims of fake physics.

The Stefan-Boltzmann relation applies to an equilibrium of radiant transfer, which the Earth never sees. The engineering approach to this is usually describing the emissivity ε as a function of T; but T itself is defined by the radiant equilibrium, and the whole application of this is actually circular reasoning.

In terms of the relation, inequalities can be described, that’s about the extent of it

For those who are interested in the predictions of MODTRAN, here is one chart of MODTRAN output which indeed predicts backradiation from CO2.
At levels of only 1% water vapour or less, which is true in the atmosphere above 5km AMSL [Sioris 2010, Fig 3, since 3000ppm << 1%], the downwards longwave IR increases as CO2 is increased from zero.

You contradict yourself here from where you say in an earlier comment:
“there is virtually zero CO2-AGW”
You admit the CO2-AGW is greater than zero, but there’s no way for that to be true if the ‘B’ WORD radiative phenomenon doesn’t exist. There are no contradictions in reality, therefore one of your two comments is fanciful, so which is it?

No More. We are not turning this into another Slayers thread. Radiation goes in all directions. Those photons do not plan their trips. Put these comments on an appropriate thread, and think about kinetic transfer of energy as well as radiative transfer. I’ve added the term “backradiation” to the moderation filter to stop people from diverting threads.

If I am not allowed to respond to turnedoutnice’s ad-hominem and baseless insult at 14.1.1, since that would require saying the forbidden ‘B’ word, then would you do the courtesy of moderating/deleting his insult at 14.1.1 please.

Actually you could delete that entire comment of his since it is mostly unconnected with anything I said, points to no empirical evidence, and is likely a load of twaddle which impressed 10 gullible people.

After further consideration of the blessed Brown’s wisdom, I believe we can also solve the problem of problematic election results. To ensure “appropriate” results, one must have at least one degree in the humanities to qualify to vote.

Today is a very sad day for real science. Bureaucrat and charlatan science is briefly triumphant.

But hopefully, triumphant only for a day.

Long ago, leaders of the global warming cult, funded by government largesse, learned that it was more effective to be abusive to, rather than to debate with, sceptics. After all, if you are a charlatan, cries of “Yah, boo, sucks to you” is far more comforting than having your ‘science’ and beliefs publicly sliced and diced by well informed sceptics.

The IPCC has yet again tried to pull off an immense hoax by packaging it inside a pseudo-scientific report.

They did this 6 years ago with AR4 which had at its heart the claim that aerosols ‘making clouds more reflective’ hid CO2-AGW. To do this they substituted Sagan’s incorrect aerosol optical physics for Twomey’s more correct version when he had warned there was an unknown second optical effect.

This is large droplets in rain clouds scattering light much more effectively than small droplets – it’s why thunderclouds are very dark underneath and why Venus has high albedo. This is why Sagan got the Venusian atmosphere wrong and started the CO2-AGW scare for us.

This time the IPCC is trying to scare us with the ocean heat content argument. The claim that this is from the extra ‘back radiation’ from more CO2 is the scientific equivalent of bollocks because IR causes more evaporation, not temperature rise.

In reality, the extra ocean heating has been from the burst of Asian aerosol pollution making clouds less reflective so more SW energy enters the oceans and it is SW that does the heating.

Correct the physics mistakes and there is virtually zero CO2-AGW and the aerosol effect has stabilised hence no more warming. Don’t let this intergovernmental posse of confidence tricksters and their unscientific hacks fool you yet again.

- It’s all about poisoning the wells.
Do our auntie media give a fair balanced view ? No the green/lefties injet poison at every opportunity. There were no comedy sketches at all about Gillard. But the BBC already seem to air this sneer at Abbott which has no comedy value
: “fan of old racist, sexist white men ? give us a twirl luv & fetch me a tinny”
link : A nasty sneer at Tony Abbot, in NewsJack a BBC comedy radio show. Normally on NewsJack people send in their own sketch ideas and the producer selects the best ones for the team to make I don’t know who authorised this one. (it’s only on the BBC website for another 48 hours)

What the UN IPCC Climate Report isn’t able to do after billions of dollars spent trying to nail humans for dangerous global warming:

1. The IPCC can’t measure the amount of global warming since 1950 which is attributable to humans, versus what is attributable to natural climate variability. They just claim humans are to blame for ‘most’, – since when did ‘most’ become a unit of measure? Where is the table or graph which shows how they have measured and attributed human caused versus natural warming, and then shown that the amount of human caused warming is >50%, therefore most of the warming is caused by humans.

If climate scientists cannot do this, then how did they claim an increase from 90% certainty in 2007, to 95% today,that humans are responsible for ‘most’ warming since 1950?

As a statistical specialist I have not read anything in the leaked report which supports this claimed increased confidence. If anything, the empirical data on temperature, versus the climate model projections would have been solid justification to reduce the level of claimed confidence. That is what a great deal of the scientific world was expecting – some admission of increased doubt.

The statement of increased confidence in the latest UN IPCC report should be seen for what it really is, a marketing claim made up by the PR branch of the IPCC – it is not scientific.

2. The IPCC has not identified the amount of warming attributable to each natural climate variable (ENSO cycles, solar cycles, orbital cycles, cosmic energy, etc), nor the impact of known negative and positive feedbacks related to increasing CO2. If this isn’t done, the Climate Modellers can’t include these variables and feedbacks in Global Climate Calculation models. This means the models don’t have the full picture, they are operating blind. Therefore the future projections of maximum temperature rises, sea ice melting, sea level rising, severe weather events and so on, are just guess work with little or no actual scientific data to support it. Simply speculation!

The UN IPCC and the Climate Alarmists seem to be saying, they can’t explain why they think it’s that way, it’s just the ‘vibe’ they get. Or maybe it is heat sneaking its way past out range of temperature measuring devices through the atmosphere, on the land and sea surfaces and through the first 700m of water and into the deep oceans to where we can’t measure it. Yeah, right!

And skeptics shouldn’t insist on evidence, they shouldn’t be skeptical; they should just trust them on it, and at great cost to taxpayers.

Actually I thought the article was quite balanced and fair. It did not spend the vast amounts of time on rhetoric and comments about a religion, gods, high priests and religious doctrine comments that are evident in this post, instead of sticking to actual arguments.

He merely points out that the IPCC is put together by hundreds of qualified authors from over 30 countries and is based on the latest peer reviewed science where they are willing to follow the science wherever it leads. In contrast the NIPCC is funded by groups with known strong funding from fossil fuel groups, hardly impartial, looking for a predetermined outcome from a very small number of authors, using previously discredited papers. I was pleased to see him highlight the McLean paper that I have been focussing on recently, the one where they predicted that 2011 would be as low as 1956 due to ENSO. In fact it was about 0.5 degrees higher highlighting what I have been saying about AGW overwhelming natural factors and that the lack of cooling proves continued warming. Apparently though this paper featured prominently in the NIPCC report without pointing out the total failure of this prediction. One of the authors of the NIPCC was Bob Carter who also was an author of that failed paper, so he was aware of its problems.

The other factor that makes sense is that science is a very specialised area, most of science is non intuitive to someone who has not been trained in it. Lay people are easily fooled by statements that on the face of them seem to make perfect logical sense but are meaningless and incorrect from a scientific perspective. This is no different than many other specialist professions. I would not want a nurse deciding on the design for a bridge, a plumber telling me what are the options for a hiatus hernia or a politician installing my toilet. People go to university, or complete apprenticeships for a reason, because they have a passion for a profession that they want to become an expert in. There is nothing wrong with that and experts are needed everyday in most areas, even if you are a filing clerk in a court, you are good at your job and an expert in another field would most likely make a total hash of it. There is nothing wrong with that. But here in an alternate universe, anyone that can browse google is an instant expert on any topic and can make decisions that can affect the future of the 10′s of billions of inhabitants on this planet that will come after us.

Oh gawd!!!! It was a hit piece, Michael; just a hatchet job by someone who has no way to do anything better.

You appear to be a teacher. If so, I pity your students if your understanding of the world around you is no better than what I see here.

Someone mentioned the late Carl Sagan in an earlier thread. I did not always agree with his views but I don’t remember that he ever attempted this kind of put-down of those who didn’t agree with him. He never to my knowledge said anything like, “I’m the scientist and you must agree with me because you can’t possibly understand what I understand.”

He was particularly insistent that there is no God, saying over and over that there needs to be extraordinary proof of such extraordinary claims. I’ll leave everyone to their own opinions on the subject and simply say I think Sagan was not only a brilliant man but possessed of enough wisdom to avoid the mistakes of the global warming alarmists like you, Michael.

Sagan did do one thing that puzzles me. For a man who insisted that there is no God, it seems incongruous to say the least, that when he wrote his long awaited novel he had to postulate creators of the universe in order to have a plot. It’s a good read nonetheless but a little inconsistent with Carl Sagan the astronomer.

I’ll end with this note. I wish those who push the global warming alarm held to Sagan’s view that extraordinary proof is required for extraordinary claims.

I’d settle for a theory that in some believable way explains why millions of insects evolved from caterpillars with a pupating stage in the middle. Evolution falls short on many fronts. Backslider is right–the universe is extraordinary and it requires more of an explanation that millions of larvae, by an unknown but obviously natural process (really?) become a creature that in no way resembles the original. Birds fly 6000 miles in migrating. How many millions of years and “survival of the most fit” scenarios do we need to explain that one? I’m certainly not saying science can explain God or prove God exists, but I think the claim that we have theory that somehow so well covers everything that is completely eliminates the need for a better explanation is very, very wrong. We have a theory that explains a few things and it can be used by scientists to claim we don’t need God. Sure, we don’t need God maybe if we have a real theory that does explain things, but not needing something does not disprove its existence.

Very many bad things happen in science when it decides that the only way to defeat religion is to replace it. The Church of Climate Change is one such example. That has not worked out well. Evolution did not fare much better–people have to be threatened with lawsuits to force teachers to say this is “fact” when it not fact, just the consensus theory we have at the moment. Any time science says “We don’t need God to explain this” it generally means they are trying to replace God with science.

You make a compelling argument. And yet if I think about it I’d have to call the universe ordinary. After all, it is our daily home and everything around us is arguably well within the ordinary every day experience of the human race. Our failure to understand it doesn’t change that fact.

On the existence of God: I try not to get onto debate because there is no way I know of for either side to ever “win” that debate. I know what I think and why I think it. But in the end, no one claiming to be God has come along and slapped me in the face asking, “Now will you finally pay attention to me?”

The removal of God — that higher authority — from our culture has been a disaster. When those colonists could claim in their declaration of independence that all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, everyone was afraid to mess around with those rights. But when rights are only what government grants us, then we have no rights, only tyranny. Government is no longer our servant but becomes our master instead.

Roy–If the universe is ordinary, then where do extraordinary things come from?

( I agree that debating God’s existence is usually futile at best and downright ugly at worst, and that the removal of the concept of God did allow people to become quite narcissistic and badly behaved. So I suppose we are saying that whether or not God exists, the belief that he exists is beneficial to society in some ways. Of course, this benefit waxes and wanes throughout history.)

Roy–If the universe is ordinary, then where do extraordinary things come from?

Sheri, you do know how to ask the tough questions — and good for you too!

If I may take the example at hand, extraordinary would be something like the claim of catastrophic warming from increasing CO2 when no evidence for it actually exists. I know I’m taking advantage of Carl Sagan’s position to back me up but it’s show me the credible evidence or go away and don’t bother me.

I think new discoveries about the natural world do not rise to that level. They’ve always been around and we were either unable to notice them until some advance in technology made it possible or we were simply not looking in the right place.

As for the development of life, it seems obvious that it was (or is) built into the system, thus it happened. Does chance play some role in it? I think certainly it does. But chance is not going to create life out of something that was not capable of coming to life in the first place.

‘Michael the realist’:
I find Michael Brown’s intellectual arrogance staggering, but not unusual among the ‘warmists’.
Any motivated member of the public is I suggest quite capable of understanding the principles of what is being said if the point is explained properly.
I say this because an elderly ex-army man and family friend forged a good career in management for himself after WWII. He wanted to know what my Ph.D. thesis was about, so, with pencil and paper in hand, I explained what I was doing. Within five minutes, he clearly understood. I knew because of the questions he was asking. Too many scientists hide behind their white coats. As regards the public, often it’s the ones who don’t know about the subject that ask quite interesting and penetrating questions. And who exactly are ‘the public’? There are a lot of people with different backgrounds who comment on this site. They’re all interested because political decisions made will affect us all.
Because a scientist has an alternative view doesn’t mean they’re ‘bankrolled by the libertarian Heartland Institute to promote dissent about climate change’ – I notice that Michael Brown takes a swipe at Bob Carter. I’ve read Carter’s book, and checked various points that he makes, ditto Ian Plimer’s book. I found those points to be truthful citations of other scientists’ work.
Brown’s condescending attitude towards fellow men of science is of course not unusual among the ‘warmists’. The whole snide attitude of some of those who believe in man-made global warming is offensive. In all my years in medical laboratory science I never once came across the use of infantile terms such as ‘cherry picking’, ‘debunking’ and so forth.
Finally, a plumber may not be able to advise you on the options for the treatment of a hiatus hernia – but it’s a safe bet that he (or these days ‘she’ as well) would certainly understand what a hiatus hernia is, and also the treatment options when explained.

We only need to look at what “Michael the Realist” believes to understand that his opinions are utter tosh:

Temps do not ‘rise’ due to clouds or water vapor, they ‘rise’ (really it is energy content in the whole system that is rising of which atmosphere is a small part) due to less energy leaving (due to CO2) than entering the planetary system.

Water vapor does nothing, clouds do nothing. He even believes that our emissions of CO2 are what pulled the planet’s climate out of The Little Ice Age!

The fact is that recent studies show that both clouds and water vapor have been diminishing, thus falsifying the warmist GHG theory and models because the required feedbacks do not exist. Whatever has warmed the planet (try the sun) it wasn’t CO2.

Since warming is entirely due to CO2, there is NO catastrophe awaiting us, warming will be gradual and due to its logarithmic influence we have plenty of time to continue business as usual, confident that technological advancements in the areas of superconductors, nanotechnology, etc will eventually lead to a renaissance in energy generation, storage and usage.

As such it is entirely unwarranted, and irresponsible given so many current real human crises and problems worthy of investment, to spend vast amounts of money on regressive, inherently inefficient and intermittent technologies (wind and solar) that are unsuitable for base load power supply. In the absence of water vapour feedbacks, we have centuries for this transition to evolve, rather than try to force a revolution to occur where we lack the technological capacity to make that “revolution” succeed.

MichaelTR, Brown didn’t talk about “religion” instead he wrote from a religious point of view and pretended it was science.
You prove my point by citing yet more consensus publicity material and repeat the boring debunked ad hom of fossil fuels. Thank you.

I write about the philosophy of science, while Michael Brown writes a hit piece.
Lay people might be “fooled” but if climate scientists can’t convince other scientists – the physicists, chemists, engineers and geo’s – they’re not doing science.

Your analogy about doctors is a bore. We’ve gone through this, but your job is to ignore the responses, and cut and paste the permitted “talking points” isn’t it? When you plumber tells you that your surgeon is using tricks to hide the decline, has lost his data, and is manipulating things to stop his critics being published, it’s time to find a better surgeon.

There are better climate scientists out there, and they are all skeptics.

… the IPCC [Report] is put together by hundreds of qualified authors from over 30 countries …

That is true as far as it goes. But, it neglects to mention that the synopsis for each chapter is predefined by the IPCC Secretariat, which is staffed by career politicians and bureaucrats with minimal scientific credentials.

It also neglects to mention that any particular author only gets to work on one chapter, so none of he so-called experts get to see the bigger picture that will ultimately bear their name.

Further, Michael doesn’t know, or fails to mention, that the qualification bar for being an author is set extremely low. Some authors in the past have been final year BSc students that just happen to also be Greenpeace activists. [Laframboise-The Delinquent Teenager]

… and is based on the latest peer reviewed science where they are willing to follow the science wherever it leads.

This is true, except it fails to mention that the peer review process, within the climate change fraternity, is a very closed shop, and is subject to manipulation.

Emails, from Phil Jones of the CRU, now in the public domain, and not denied by him, make that quite evident.

In contrast the NIPCC is funded by groups with known strong funding from fossil fuel groups, hardly impartial, looking for a predetermined outcome from a very small number of authors, using previously discredited papers.

And your source for this statement is … where? How do you define “strong”? I have not heard of that being a unit of quantity before. I am also inclined to ask if Fossil Fuel Group is the name of a rock band. Would you care to share which group you were referring to?

The other factor that makes sense is that science is a very specialised area, most of science is non intuitive to someone who has not been trained in it.

This I will agree with, but only in regard to the younger generations, And it is only because of the dismal standard of science and maths teaching in schools. Older generations, that had a good general science education, and learnt maths to the level where they understood complex numbers and Fourier Analysis, have no problem in understanding the basic chemical and physical principles involved in heat transfer, climate circulation systems, plant transpiration, etc.

Lay people are easily fooled by statements that on the face of them seem to make perfect logical sense but are meaningless and incorrect from a scientific perspective.

Absolutely. This is a phenomena that is capitalised upon by the political entity that is the IPCC, and is the reason why there are so many sceptics in the sciences outside of Climate Change (which is, after all, only a sub-branch of Physics, and still subject to physical laws)

People go to university, or complete apprenticeships for a reason, because they have a passion for a profession that they want to become an expert in.

That is idealistic generalisation. Most people want a job, that will give them an income, so they can have food and shelter sufficient to raise a family.

It is only when their income, and their sense of security, is sufficient, that they have time for idealism. But given that you have a passion for climate matters, your general knowledge probably does not extend to Psychology. Time to change that, try searching for Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need.

There is nothing wrong with that and experts are needed everyday in most areas

Which is why we now have self-proclaimed experts in Carbon Dioxide.

But here in an alternate universe, anyone that can browse google is an instant expert

Well, I can’t comment on your alternate universe, but here, where I live, in the real universe, we put great store on being able to do research on a wide range of topics, and to conduct robust and repeatable analysis, taking the relevant factors into account (irrespective of the speciality they may belong to) to build a defendable hypothesis on the topic at hand.

This can involve looking at science, in conjunction with economics, and religious sensitivities, within a geopolitical context, flavoured with pragmatic reality to give decision makers a range of viable options that could, ultimately impact …

… the future of the 10′s of billions of inhabitants on this planet that will come after us.

Why,I wonder,will you not properly introduce yourself?Anyway,your simply another noisy zealot with a sinister agenda and an oh so predictable set of demands.Do stop wasting everybody’s time simply to fulfill your demented urge to scare small children.

True that. When we went from straightforward carny flim flam using the prop of a crystal ball to the bells and whistles of computer gaming sims and claimed they were scientific predictions ( not G.I.G.O. ) because hindcasting could be fudged – with great difficulty – to produce appropriate ‘predictions’ we were treated to the great and wonderful spectacle of ‘scientists’ claiming to predict disaster. With a ‘con – senseless’ yet.

Michael – you would fit in perfectly well with the 16th century Catholic Church.

How ridiculous. The catholic church rejected the science due to ideology and profit. This is exactly the same as climate misleaders rejecting the science. People like Hansen are like modern day Galileos, accepting the science wherever it leads despite the consequences.

Actually, he practiced alchemy quite openly – it was an established branch of science at that time, in competition with Chemistry. Much like climate science is supposedly a branch of science today, although in reality, it is only a sub-branch of Physics, and still subject to the law of Physics and Chemistry, even though the much vaunted models fail to implement those laws correctly, when used in combination with each other.

I was wondering why the AR4 model runs in very clear fashion either end or all converse to about three or 4 runs around 1996 to 1998 on the time scale of the chart. I cannot render a scientific opinion on usefulness of the chart or article. My engineering opinion is that the chart is the chorus of the Ode to Stupid. The underlying explanations found in the “best case scenario” article are all consistent verses in the Ode to Stupid.

In the many areas of technology I have explored, the security and transactional process of numerous applications similar to wordpress. Such analysis was done professionally and also for my own amusement. I will not give you the answer to your question as doing such is not being a gentlemen. But I do appreciate your complement. Those who can claim the title of Engineers are like all other humans, Some gain the wisdom of what they are stupid about and other do not. I have been fortunate in my life too work with wise engineers and scientist. I have also had to deal with many Michael Browns.

How far can he go? Most of these types seem to have a tree with limbs of infinite length, out onto which they steadily crawl. They always carry a saw with them. But the trees are magic, so cutting off the limb behind them never results in a fall. Someday I hope their magic trees will fail them and things will change. But I don’t hold my breath.

Actually, sitting here listening to the behaviour of the US Congress and President, I may be forced to agree with Michael Brown–people are too stupid to get it. In a country where the President repeatedly says “Raising the debt limit does not increase the debt of this country” and is virtually unchallenged, getting people to understand why a theory that has been disproven over and over and over is wrong if Al Gore says it’s right looks unlikely. The same individuals think Gore is God and make all kinds of excuses for his taking money from oil countries and using more energy than a small third world nation. He can do no wrong. Even when he does.

Are we really sure there’s enough people left out there who can understand it? (Not trying to be mean or sarcastic—it’s just that there is so much blatant stupidity out there…..Oh, and I am not hinting for or asking for a pep talk so please refrain. Just some observations on signs I might have missed. I am not giving up talking science–I know we have to try. I’m just trying to realistic.)

Not sure where you live, Sheri, but we have seen the rise of what is now called the “low information voter”, the person who gets all of their ‘information’ (read propaganda) from the lame-stream media (who are sycophantic parrots of the “official” party line), and who have never been taught HOW to think, only WHAT to think (witness Michael the witless Realist).

Sidebar: I am a citizen of the United States of America, and I have never been more ashamed of my country than I am today.

What is happening was forecast in the 2005 movie, Idiocracy. If you have not seen this, it is funny and sad at the same time. Up until about a year ago, or so, I had believed that hominid devolution would be something taking place in the future. I realize now that the process has in fact begun.

Hey Michael! Prove me wrong, and refute turnedoutnice’s 14.1.1 post above. Then we’ll move on to challenge number two: correlation coefficients! I just finished a new one, and things aren’t looking to “hot” for the IPCC.

[ Dear Sheri, I am an engineer. That could suggest I have far greater understanding of science and technology. But my knowledge from working in a field of creating real solutions also requires working with all manner of people with more or similiar and mostly far less knowledge of science or engineering methods. From my life experience the specific knowledge of some rules of science does by itself give anyone the ability to be an expert judge of matters scientific.

The design and creation process does give real experience in methods and approaches in finding the core of truths and usually the vision see most of the noise of ignorance. What is a true beacon of ignorance to me? Any person who says

science is not about debate,

That is the blind science process that lead to Space Shuttle Challenger disaster It does not take a rocket scientist to see the errors in judgement by those smart technologist.

I was not a rocket scientist at the time, but maybe I am one now.Hydraulic UltraSonic Bolting system.
In 1990, as a result Challenger accident NASA contracted with the PowerDyne Division of Raymond Engineering for the development the Hydraulic Ultra Sonic Bolting System. Mr. Watson as a Consultant to Raymond Engineering designed and developed the HUBS control program. The HUBS program was a real time embedded control program for the controlled sequential bolting of the joints of the solid rocket boosters. The program maintained a database of the bolting process and provided complete calibration of pressure and ultrasonic load measuring instrumentation. To provide realtime signal emulation Mr Watson designed and fabricated the HUBS Electronic Emulation Simulator.

Science is NOT about debate, it is about honestly addressing, and determinedly adhering to, the relevant factual (objective) evidence, particularly definitive evidence for or against a proposal. There should be no “climate debate”, because the consensus alarmists are not abiding by the definitive evidence against their theories, and are in fact not performing science, only seeking justification for their loose, incompetent thinking and their government grants–just as the politicos are seeking only justification for their tyrannous, confiscatory “climate policies”. There are NO COMPETENT climate scientists and no valid “climate science”–it is a failed science, entirely and utterly.

I believe there is genuine climate science. I cannot list the names of competent climate scientists, except Roy W. Spencer. He is analysing true global temperature measurements. His analysis has provided some of the best science that shows the equations or assumption of the global warming models are false. I hope this eventually leads to looking more at the basic physics and assumptions that are the foundation of the proffered AGW climate mechanism. I do know that Dr. Spencer accepts there ain’t no catastrophe but I am not certain he understands the physics of the actual mechanisms.

However the more proof the models are false by measurements may lead more Physicist’s to expound on.
Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics. Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschnerhttp://arxiv.org/abs/0707.1161
Abstract
The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier 1824, Tyndall 1861, and Arrhenius 1896, and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist. Nevertheless, in almost all texts of global climatology and in a widespread secondary literature it is taken for granted that such mechanism is real and stands on a firm scientific foundation. In this paper the popular conjecture is analyzed and the underlying physical principles are clarified. By showing that (a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 C is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.

Thank you. Your comment makes a great deal of sense. I had not thought about the Challenger incident. You’re right on the basic principles of science being enough to understand why climate change science is failing. Unfortunately, the climate scientists were clever enough to get “peer-review” and “appropriate authority” instilled in their followers and in the general public’s concept of science. I just keep repeating myself over and over when I am confronted with this–it’s amazing what true believers will do to keep their belief in climate change.

Sheri, don’t think of this as being “climate-scientists” vs uneducated non-scientist clueless public.

The public is made up of doctors, lawyers, engineers, and other scientists as well as people who find the argument difficult to follow. (But let’s not to forget the street smart savvy people with no qualifications who have no trouble watching two groups of scientists hammer it out and picking the winner).

The climate scientists are not convincing other scientists, especially those from the hard sciences.

The “climatology” field up to 40 years ago had no more basis than stock market forecasting based on trends. “Modeling” was introduced to explain such things as the origin of the El Nino, such attempts failed, but the “modeling” became the whole field because the “prediction” part of it was baseless.

Unfortunately this wasn’t based on sound physical principles and is why it is meaningless. The only justification it has is denigration of anyone who criticizes it.

Brown is darn right: indeed too many PhDs in television watching want to debate science. But that situation was in fact the goal of the green agitprop: drown legitimate. knowledgeable scientists in a sea of uneducated masses, transform a scientific issue into moral issues in which a larger number of people is bound to be split into camps.
The problem for Brown is that there are many PhDs in science whose work and opinions are stiffled. So, as usual, this is a strawman argument meant to belittle the other side of the discussion and mask the reality: the CO2 science is crumbling.

Very true Jo. Exactly what Ivar Giaver said. And he added:
“I am happy I am allowed to speak for myself:”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYpxBSV8Qqw
“Global Warming has became a new religion. Because you can’t discuss it.”

One thing I will give the warmists credit for, is that they are able to get their foot soldiers out in a well organised way at the appropriate time. The MSM world wide has articles quoting the usual people in the particular country promoting the scam. ( Although I’m not they are as good as they were).

But we have some brilliant people on our side who shoot like a sniper , not like with a shot gun.

Eddie Sharpe“Rocket Scientists put people on the Moon. Monitoring climate is all very well but what did Climate Scientists ever make happen ?”

They are the proxy by which governments all over the western world have ensured that living standards fall, unemployment rises, investments are made in unnecessary projects because of their calamitous projections and forecasts. They have indirectly caused a rise in deaths due to unreliable and overpriced electricity generation. They also ensure that $billions are wasted in futile schemes who’s ultimate outcomes will not better the human condition or the knowledge of our world.

I did have a thought on this “people are too stupid to understand science” idea. Maybe it’s not a question of understanding science, but rather recognizing theater when one sees it. I’m not sure a guy with blood on him screams out “science” so much as “look at me, look at me–I want my 15 minutes of fame”. Let’s hope he gets 15 minutes and then people move on to the next entertainment piece.

FFS, the reason Einstein’s theory took a while to be accepted is that there was a competing theory which did as good a job as Einstein’s theory of explaining observed phenomena. In addition, the competing theory appeared to offer a theoretical path to combining gravity with electromagnetic forces.

It wasn’t until a prediction of Einstein’s theory was observed, which contradicted the competing theory, that Einstein finally had the proof he needed to back his theory.

The reason – the observation could only be performed during a full solar eclipse. The prediction Einstein made, which contradicted the competing theory, was that the gravity of the sun would cause an apparent shift in the position of stars whose light passed close to the sun. Only with the moon blocking the sun’s light could the positions of adjacent stars be measured.

Obviously one set of observations would not necessarily have convinced everyone, and further measurements were taken, before Einstein’s theory was unequivocally accepted.

It is rather disturbing that an Astronomer does not appear to know the details of one of the most important set of astronomical observations in the history of science

Start your weekend with a laugh. Here is Ross McKitrick’s comment on WUWT and the IPCC’s Policy Maker’s
report.

“SPM in a nutshell: Since we started in 1990 we were right about the Arctic, wrong about the Antarctic, wrong about the tropical troposphere, wrong about the surface, wrong about hurricanes, wrong about the Himalayas, wrong about sensitivity, clueless on clouds and useless on regional trends. And on that basis we’re 95% confident we’re right.”

Here’s a little I would like to say. Sunspots,if they are high in number appear to affect the earth’s temperature in ways not understood.

I have just recently viewed the “Great Global Warming Swindle” movie. It showed via graphs how the Little Ice age happened when sunspots were almost nil. (The Maunder Minimum”) The IPCC does not give much or any credence to the possible correlation between sunspot activity and temperature.

But 2 things I know.

1/ The last several years has seen very low sunspot activity. In fact, 2013 was supposed to be a whopper being at the top of the cycle. It has been the opposite with hardly any sunspots and more like a solar minimum.

2/ In the late 1800s a lay long range forecaster by the name of Inigo Jones was regarded by farmers as almost always accurate. He lived west of the Sunshine Coast. He forecast the 1893 Brisbane floods…plural because there were TWO cyclones within a week of each other causing the river to flood twice. Jone’s observatory recorded 38″ in the old scale in 1 day.
(Wouldn’t the AGW adherents go beserkers if that happened again even though there was little CO2 in the air in 1893 ?)

Jones also forecast the Federation drought saying, “There would hardly be a sheep left to stand under a tree.” He was right.

Now, the thing is, Jones used sunspot activity, plus other observations, for his forecasts. He offered his services to the newly formed BOM in the 1920s was was rejected because he wasn’t regarded as properly trained.

So he tried to train an apprentice, Lennox Walker but Jones passed away too soon to teach him all he knew. Walker failed. In 1973/4 Walker was paid to advertise lawn sprinklers on TV. He said, “I predict a dry summer…” Well, 1974 produced the biggest flood since 1983.

But that doesn’t disprove a theory sunspots influence our weather and climate. The movie I mentioned showed some very strong correlation. I also recall seeing a documentary about a dam manager in S. America. He kept long records of the river flows where he was and his graph of high and low flows were an exact match of a graph for sunspot activity.

The models did not “predict” the first 50 years. They were modeled on it!

Given the vast expanses of virtually deserted (and desert) wilderness, I would expect that Astronomy to be big in Australia. But if he is any indication of the state of the science there, I guess it is very still born.

Michael Brown is talking about debate as a path to knowledge, which is an issue of epistemology. But scientists have neither the intelligence or the training to make judgements on such issues. Only those with considerable training in Philosophy can make decisions about epistemology. Since I have a PhD in Philosophy, and am a retired lecturer in the subject, I can assure you he’s wrong. Trust me. I’m an expert.

***the IPCC obviously obeyed government demands to play down the Pause judging by the coverage i’ve come across.

27 Sept: BBC: Matt McGrath: Climate pause takes a wallop as IPCC comes out swinging
Even in the final draft of this report, the IPCC was putting forward a number of theoretical ideas behind the fall-off in temperature rises over the last 15 years, and was sheepishly acknowledging that its models failed to predict the slow-down.
But over the four days of negotiations with governments here in the Swedish capital, the UN body discovered its backbone.***
So the pause was not ignored or buried, but was, in science terms, given a ferocious kicking…
Most of the 13 Australians among the lead authors and contributing authors were selected in the time of a Labour government that favoured action on climate change and a carbon tax.
But now they have been replaced by a more avowedly sceptical Liberal party.
“My attitude is I’m interested in the science and I’m going to report what I believe the science is telling us regardless of what the government says,” said Dr John Church, the Australian convening lead author on sea level rise…
And Dr Church embodies the new combative spirit of the IPCC.
“You won’t have any effect on adaptation or mitigation of climate change, if you keep quiet – you have to speak out,” he says.
But he conceded that the recent change of government in Australia had crossed his mind.
“Yeah I have thought about that issue – but I am far enough advanced in my career that I can say what I like… I can speak the truth.”…http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24308509

28 Sept: Bloomberg: Alex Morales: Global Warming Slowdown Seen as Emissions Rise to Record
“The global average surface temperature trend of late is like a speed bump, and we would expect the rate of temperature increase to speed up again just as most drivers do after clearing the speed bump,” Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate researcher at the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a blog…
“This weakens the argument for widespread alarmism over global warming,” Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish scientist and author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” wrote by e-mail. “The report contains none of the media’s typically apocalyptic scenarios, no alarmism, and no demands to cut emissions by X-percent or to hand out lavish subsidies on solar panels.” …
***At the same time, negotiations on the wording that went through the night to early today led to the inclusion of the caveat that trends based on short periods may be affected simply by the starting and ending dates used.
The panel noted that 15-year periods starting in 1995, 1996, and 1997 would have average warming rates of 0.13, 0.14 and 0.07 degrees Celsius per decade respectively…
The report today didn’t mention another possible reason behind the slowdown in warming: that oceans may be absorbing more of the temperature increases…http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-27/global-warming-slowdown-seen-as-emissions-rise-to-record.html

27 Sept: ABC: Ursula Malone: New South Wales desalination plant deal to cost consumers $10 billion over 50 years
Sydney’s privatised desalination plant, which is costing residents more than $500,000 a day to keep on standby, will not be needed for at least another four or five years.
The sale of the plant last year to a private company for $2.3 billion means residents are locked into paying about $10 billion in fees for the next 50 years, whether the plant is operating or not.
Not one drop of water has come out of the Kurnell facility since it stopped operating more than a year ago.
With dam levels at 93.4 per cent, the plant has been placed into “water security” mode, a long-term shutdown which is likely to continue for some time…
The buyer was a consortium split 50-50 between Hastings Funds Management and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, based in Canada.
Between now and 2062 they are guaranteed inflation-linked payments of about $10 billion from Sydney Water…
“The problem with all these privatisations, the details are always kept hidden,” Mr Daley (Opposition treasury spokesman Michael Daley) said.
“There’s great secrecy that surrounds all these asset sales under the O’Farrell Government.”…http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-27/nsw-desalination-plant-deal-costing-customers-10-billion/4985168

25 Sept: Gold Coast Bulletin: Andrew Potts: Tate desal plan rejected
A GRAND plan to convert the mothballed Tugun desalination plant into a tourism facility has been labelled “unrealistic” by stunned civic leaders.
The $1.2 billion “white elephant” facility, which has been used only twice since it was completed more than three years ago, is under the microscope as part of the Newman Government’s review of its manufactured water assets, which may look at decommissioning the plant…
Among the possible tourism ventures proposed were the conversation(sic) of its outlet pipes to become an offshore dive site and creating a bungee-jumping attraction…http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2013/09/25/458795_gold-coast-news.html

25 Sept: Gold Coast Bulletin: Andrew Potts: Council’s $1 bid to buy desal plant
Gold Coast City Council has written to State Energy Minister Mark McArdle demanding the Newman Government make their intentions known for the multi-billion dollar plant…
Keeping the plant online annually is costing taxpayers more than $16 million. (what does the dot represent? it appears with all figures in this article – pat)
The Newman Government mothballed the Beattie-era Western Corridor Recycling Scheme earlier this month.
The program and its infrastructure, including the desalination plant, was written off as an “unmitigated disaster”.
Yet Mayor Tate said unwanted state assets such as the plant would be welcomed by the council.
“I have, this week, written to Mr McArdle to find out what his plans are and what could be done with the plant. If it is to be decommissioned I would like to see the pipeline used to send out treated water, given it already puts it straight into the ocean,” the mayor said.
“Given the council originally commissioned it before the project was taken by the state and expanded significantly, having it come back under our control would be bringing it home. We will pay only $1 for it.”…http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2013/09/25/458791_gold-coast-news.html

I have only one thing to say to Brown, that being that there were scientists involved in both the Nazi and Soviet regimes. Scientists are not by definition moral beings no more so than the rest of us. Brown assumes the weight of bought and paid for science trumps the right of people in a democracy to question and challenge authority. The dick obviously has no respect for democracy.

“…those who question the mantra of the IPCC are not just speaking their mind, they are using a pseudoscience “ploy” to fool the people (who are too dumb to realize).”
I think he means you here with this quote Joanne

Already five years ago, just after the previous IPCC report a Dutch astronomer Kees de Jager rejected the IPCC findings. He is specialized in the Sun and solar activity. He predicted that during the 21st century and on to 2200 longer periods of an inactive Sun would cool the Earth to a new little ice age (Dalton Minimum and Maunder Minimum). Al Gore should have paid attention to this professor in astronomy:

He has a point but he has the wrong target, AGW is akin to zombies, when infected they become brain dead and feed of people who can still think! He must be getting desperate, his gravytrain is off the rails there and when the truth is out who would employ him?

I find parts of this article to be misleading. Brown does deal specifically with some of the science in the NIPCC report in the second half of his article on the conversation. The “names” this article criticises him for using are all highlighted links to published journal articles. It is common to cite articles in science using the names of the lead authors. Of course this is not an exhaustive critique, it’s a short article, but it is a start. Furthermore, Brown engages with those who wish to discuss aspects of the science in the comments section.

What Brown was really writing about though is how best to present science to the public. He’s arguing that consensus reporting is better than public debate because it more accurately represents what the weight of evidence and opinion says. This is an interesting area of discussion. For sure not everyone has the education to be able to assess some of the complex arguments around scientific theories, yet most of us live in democracies where everyone is charged with making a decision essentially on these subjects through their vote for politicians who have positions on the science. How does the public decide? What is the best way to present what we know, what we think we know, and everything in between?

What is the best way to present what we know, what we think we know, and everything in between?

That’s quite simple: By being honest.

This is the biggest problem with the so called “consensus”. Those who take the time to find out can see clearly that any notion of a consensus is a complete crock and unscientific to boot, yet the MSM, fuelled by self interested groups such as the IPCC and environmental groups continue to shove it down people’s throats as though it were fact.

Of course. I happen to believe both sides of the debate are being honest in terms of what they believe. The question is who is right and how to tell? Rather than who is being honest with us.

Science is all about being honest in our search for the truth. Science relies on researchers being honest with themselves in what their data is saying. Without this we can’t make progress on this or any other research topic. Scientists are, by training, more honest than average. Because if their not then all our progress stops. This is why when you have a conversation with a scientist they use lots of words to explain something that you might summarise in one sentence. They don’t like being imprecise, and are at pains to be as accurate as possible. This trait isn’t particularly helpful when it comes to communicating with the public though.

I suppose my preferred method of communication would be to use the form of a review paper. There as many results as are relevant are presented and summarised. The prevailing view and contrary views are outlined in proportion of the research that backs them and placed in critical context.

It’s not really important, but since you asked, I’m a physicist. My PhD was in nanoscience and chemical physics. I’m currently working in planetary astronomy understanding the atmospheres of other planets. If you want to see what I do, use google scholar, search for author:d-v-cotton

Wasn’t Jo Nova’s point that we could have an intelligent discussion about ideas? That using names wasn’t the way to get your argument across? You’re not doing a very good job of making that point. So far you’ve questioned my credentials, suggesting that only an expert can make a valid point. Then when I gave you details of my credentials you simply labelled my points ‘crud’.

If you want to prove Jo right, if you want debate on equal terms, then discuss all the points on merit please.

Is it a coincidence that virtually all “reviewed” papers agree with your viewpoint? Even though there are literally thousands of studies that do not find in favor of the reviewed viewpoint? Would that not make one question why it is that only a tiny few ideas are accepted in what is supposed to be the search for truth? Kind of looks more like a cursory glance over the area and choosing whatever stands up the highest. How it got tall is the important question–”fertilization”, strangling out competitors, or survival of the adequately fit? Being the loudest and the most aggressive, demanding people accept what “appropriate authorities” are saying is not science. We need to look at how the theory got to where it is, in addition to the theory itself, when deciding who is being “honest”. (The theory, of course, lives or dies on the strength of the evidence and methodology.)

All the papers that I have cited in the discussions here are 25+ years old. All older than the first IPCC report, and before most people had even heard of global warming. Further, they are papers about Venus, not even about the Earth. This science is not controversial at all in the planetary science community. If people wanted to publish contrary view points in these areas there would be none of the political pressure you allude to. Yet, posters here have claimed that they can debunk these papers, and argued with some of the science that underpins them. Why would that be the case?

* – Phil Jones admitting in 2008? that the world hadn’t warmed in seven years, but nonetheless conspiring to hide this fact from the public.

* – Not one but two fraudulent studies purporting to prove “97%” of scientists believe we’re going to hell in a handbasket, and it’s all ManBearPig’s fault.

* – Any one of 12 deliberate falsifications in Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”, as established in a court of law in England – and yet it is STILL shown as a documentary in Australian schools.

* – The much repeated claim, by the IPCC, Flim-Flammery, Karoly, Steffen and many other qualified people on the public teat, that the”missing heat” is “finding its way into the oceans”, in direct contravention of both the observed Water Cycle, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

* – the equally oft repeated, absurd claim by the above liars, and others, that everybody who disagrees with the “consensus” – like Jo and those of who are regulars – are all part of a vast, well-funded conspiracy backed by “Big Oil” and “Big Tobacco”.

* – Peter Gleick committing identity theft, fraud and wire fraud, but remaining the Chairman of a major Ethics Committee.

And that’s just the ones that came to mind in the first two minutes of my anger at your post.

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And you have the unmitigated gall to come here and claim these people are not only honest, but every bit as honest as Jo and the rest of us, who rely on nothing more than science to support our views?

Oh there are definitely exceptions, people who aren’t honest. I was speaking in generalities, if the vast majority of scientists, on whatever side of an argument they are on, aren’t honest then progress stops. There is also a difference between people believing in something and the whether the methods they might use to convince others being honest or not. Just because I feel both sides of the debate believe what they say doesn’t mean I believe they are playing fair.

You joke about following the yellow brick road, but you should remember Newton’s quote, to succeed we stand on the shoulders of giants. Results are forever being retested and their implications and meanings refined. But neither an individual nor a group of scientists can re-test all results, we have to take the work of those past and build on it. If someone later finds that a result we took for granted is wrong, well our result falls down too, but more often than not that does not happen. Refinements of meaning happen a lot, complete shifts in understanding are exceedingly rare, and are famous enough that most people know about them (think the Heliocentric Model of the Solar System or Quantum Mechanics).

You ask what I do, I’ve posted about it above. I’ve published papers on everything from polymer lithography, satellite data analysis, the effect of solar forcing on rainfall, to the distribution of gases on Venus and polymer bonding to metal surfaces.

You guys are the ones who wanted to make an issue of my credentials. Like I said above Jo’s point was that your name shouldn’t matter only your ability to communicate the validity of the science. If you believe what Jo is saying credentials shouldn’t matter to you, and you wouldn’t have asked for them.

The assumptions that go into climate models consist of some very well understood principles, and some we need to understand better, but can only do so with further research. To say climate science has no track record is akin to suggesting you can’t build a car from parts, simply because you haven’t before. You might not get it right exactly the first time but you’ll probably be pretty close, and you can refine it so it works better once you’ve got it together.

A lot of the parts of climate science are very well tested. The equation of radiative transfer is, for example, very well understood. We can and do use it to determine the compositions of the atmospheres of the other planets in the solar system (and indeed some exo-planets as well). The principles of light scattering are also established science, my own text book I consult for this was published in 1975, but a lot of the key science that underpins it by Mie, Rayleigh and the like is much older.

I will agree with this, insofar as the equation of transport can be applied to explain light scattering in a planetary atmosphere or the observed blackbody temperature spectrum of a star, says nothing about a “greenhouse” effect of any sort nor do I see any application to it

One of the basic assumptions of physics is that the process that underpin how the world works are the same everywhere. If you want to claim that a piece of science works in one environment and not in another then I can’t help you.

In order to calculate any possible greenhouse effect you need a number of pieces of science. One of those pieces is the equation of radiative transfer. It tells you how light propagates in an atmosphere.

If someone later finds that a result we took for granted is wrong, well our result falls down too, but more often than not that does not happen.

This is the thing. Warmist GHG theory is 100% reliant on a positive feedback from clouds and water vapor as CO2 rises…. the more CO2, the more we cook due to that. The empirical evidence is however that as CO2 continues to rise, both clouds and water vapor have been falling.

They will not and cannot let go of that core assumption in their GHG theory. There is now simply too much to lose.

Venus is an example of a planet with a runaway greenhouse effect. There are no water clouds left on Venus, and precious little water vapour, yet there is evidence that Venus once had oceans. At some point during the greenhouse warming process it is believed Venus’ water boiled off, yet it’s surface is still hot enough to melt lead, and it’s clouds now consist mostly of sulfuric acid.

Do you suppose, that those clouds have anything to do with the atmospheric heat?

The clouds are not static, presumably the droplets coalesce and fall back to the surface, where the sulfuric acid is decompose back to SO2 and water by volcanic heat, then return to the atmosphere and condense upon dust which catalyses the oxidation of SO2 to the trioxide and the heat of formation of sulfuric acid is released to the atmosphere

I thought you’d like that one. It says they found the process on Venus to be nearly insensitive to CO2. Sure, go ahead and attempt to debunk it if you like. It is a paper that is 25 years old, if it’s wrong then there is sure to be an article in the literature somewhere that says so.

I give you an analysis using actual data from direct observation and your “different view” uses a model and you think that you have offered anything of scientific value? Models are not science. You cannot put into a model anything that you do not already believe to be true. Models are the epitomy of confirmation bias.

@Truthseeker: Right, so if you want to challenge the validity of the model then you will need to show which of the set of criteria used to set it up are unreasonable in the circumstances.

What do you think goes into a model? Data, observations, scientific laws, etc. All a computer model is, is software coded up to use the data and science at hand, and then you crank the handle. Scientific models use simplifying assumptions in order to understand physical systems and make testable predictions. Some other scientific models you might of heard of: the heliocentric model of the solar system, the Bohr model of the atom, various plate tectonic models, weather forecasting models. Just about all of undergraduate Chemistry uses molecular models to understand the properties of molecules. You also have equilibrium chemistry models. Physical models of the Earth were first used to explain the Earth’s magnetic field, etc. etc. I, personally have used a radiative transfer model to determine the distribution of carbon monoxide in the Venusian atmosphere. I’ve also used EM-theory to model the propagation of an evanescent field through a polymer and explain its resulting morphology in a lithographic process.

Some people seem to think modelling is inherently flawed, it is not. You are right that what you put into a model determines its efficacy. What you need to do to challenge the results of modelling is look at the parameters that have gone into it, and the veracity of the testing of each of those parameters, and then ALSO test the robustness of the model to varying those parameters.

As regards the link you posted. Its starting point is that at the point in Venus’ atmosphere where the pressure is the same as sea level on the Earth the temperature is the same. True. But why would you start your analysis 50 km up in the atmosphere, just *above* the main cloud layer? If you want to live at 50 km up on Venus go for your life. NASA scientist Jeffery Landis has a paper somewhere on floating bubble cities in the atmosphere. Though he also happens to be a science-fiction writer, so is a little more imaginative than most.

Furthermore, suggesting the Greenhouse effect doesn’t exist in planetary evolution is just crazy, and this seems to be where you are going. The Sun is hotter now than it was during the Earth’s formation, yet the geological record shows there was liquid water on the surface billions of years ago. The only way that could be the case is if an atmospheric greenhouse effect was warming the surface. The composition of an atmosphere changes over time, greenhouse warming is one of the processes that drives that. If you change the composition of an atmosphere it has an effect on it.

The Sun is hotter now than it was during the Earth’s formation, yet the geological record shows there was liquid water on the surface billions of years ago. The only way that could be the case is if an atmospheric greenhouse effect was warming the surface.

The Earth had probably cooled enough to allow water to freeze, but the continents had not yet formed, and do you not suppose that geotectonic movement is a source of geothermal heat?

You seem to think that nobody thought beyond that Carl Sagan faint young sun greenhouse effect idea of his.

Think again. I thought about that when I was a sophomore in college. Sagan’s thinking, as well as Hansen’s, are as deep as a piece of paper. Maybe one day you’ll even understand that “deniers” aren’t as stupid as you have been told they are

You have no idea about what real science is do you? A model can only include what you already know, by definition. The relationships that it uses can only be those that the model author puts into it. Statistician E P Box put it best when he said “All models are wrong. Some are useful.” Unless you have a perfect understanding of something, any model you create of that thing will be wrong.

The Venus comparison I linked to shows that when you compare like to like, that is planetary atmospheres at the same pressure levels, the only variable that matters is the ratio of incoming solar radiation as defined by the relative difference between the planetary bodies and nothing else. The atmospheric composition of the atmosphere is irrelevant. This has had some further confirmation in the work by Nickolas and Zeller and their Unified Theory of Climate who did a similar analysis of all other planetary bodies through the solar system. It is all about the incoming energy determined from solar output and the distance from the Sun and the pressure profile of the atmosphere itself. Observations trump models every time.

However, since you seem to like models so much, you may want to look at this use of actual solar energy, a spherical Earth, a dinural cycle and actual physics to totally debunk the “greenhouse effect”.

Actually this planet has spent more time as a ball of ice than it has a planet with a liquid oceans and a comfortable temperature profile. Also ice core and ocean sediment analysis shows that temperate changes preceed changes in CO2 so that causality is destroyed right there.

Damn those observations! My model would have worked if it was not for those pesky observations …

You actually seem to be arguing with me here on some points we agree on, I’m not quite sure why. Insolation plays an important role. It was one of the inputs in the model.

The original reason I brought the Venus example up at all, was that someone implied that a decline in water vapour was catastrophic for any theory that predicted a worsening greenhouse effect. The suggestion was that without water vapour the planet would cool back down. I was simply pointing out that we know of instances where that is not the case.

You were the one that said that Venus was an example of a “runaway greenhouse effect” and then tried to defend that by pointing at the outcome of a model that someone was using.

I was just using actual data and observations to show that there is no such thing as a “greenhouse effect” and I will go further and say that anyone who uses the term “greenhouse gas” does not understand physics.

I did not say “greenhouses”, I said “greenhouse gas”. Not only did you try to create a strawman argument, but you used a very bad one at that. If you think that a free flowing gas works in the same way as actual greenhouse structures that are used in agriculture then you have just proven your complete ignorance of the physics involved. Greenhouses work by stopping heat loss by conduction and convection, not by “trapping radiaton”. That is why a physical barrier is required. Plants need sunlight which is why the barrier has to be transparent to visible light.

Here is a very simple experiment to show the fallacy of the “atmospheric greenhouse gas effect” which also shows how real greenhouses actually work.

No Truthseeker you said “greenhouse effect” which applies to greenhouses. What you wrote is there for everyone to read. This is the last thing I’m going to say, I’ll take Brian’s advice and leave it there.